P2P: Saving Stream (AKA SavingStream)

jamesd

JohnRo wrote: »

I've decided to hold on to a relatively small, capped investment with SS. Sticking to a strategy of blanket coverage, incremental reductions as the completion approaches, followed by a complete disposal at about two months to go, in the hope of avoiding the window in which a loan is more likely to default and the inevitable flood of disposals hit the secondary market.

Yes, that looks like the way to go if using Saving Stream.

JohnRo wrote: »

I'm looking at doing similar with moneything, I prefer their account portal to SS.

One important difference between the two is that Saving Stream almost always makes the borrower borrow extra money to cover all interest payments until the end of the loan term then holds that money at Saving Stream to use for interest payments. MoneyThing does not normally do this, instead the borrower usually pays each month.

This implies that a borrower may get into serious financial difficulties with Saving Stream without any clue until the end of the loan term while with MoneyThing the failure to make interest payments would show the problem. Which means that the approach of selling shortly before end of term is likely to be less effective with MoneyThing than Saving Steam.

One other difference is that MoneyThing seems to typically make regular visits to borrowers and may pick up problems more rapidly during those audit/progress check visits.

jamesd

Broken_Biscuits wrote: »

Agree 20% is misleading, however, 4.5m value with a 3.4m loan is still around the 70% ltv saving stream aim for and so is likely to still attract a full house, even after the due diligence has been done.

Yes, I'm sure that this one will still attract rapid full funding and in this particular case I'm also pretty happy with the borrower and quite confident that there will be no trouble.

Even with a lower quality proposition the flood of money would probably get funded. Too many people forgetting that getting the money back has higher priority than getting a return on it and not being patient enough to wait for high quality deals (like this one so far as the borrower goes) to get invested.

bigadaj

jamesd wrote: »

One other difference is that MoneyThing seems to typically make regular visits to borrowers and may pick up problems more rapidly during those audit/progress check visits.

I think Savingstream may be slowly learning, their latest updates detail a couple of development projects that they say they have visited and are progressing through various construction phases.

Johnro suggestion of selling before end of loan term does seem sensible, I've avoided this so far because of the issues around recording and reporting a split between capital gain and interest, but their record of deals at the end of term makes this look prudent.

In most cases this just seems bad organisation and PR, agreeing a loan to rollover by say a couple of months would appear so much better than a list of loans that appear to be in temporary default.

adindas

Broken_Biscuits wrote: »

What's the motivation for starting a brand new thread about a savings/investment platform that the OP has no intention of using and doesn't recommend. There are plenty of other P2P posts, so what's the point of this?

I think the main point here is the discuss it and have more people to scrutinize it ....
The more people scrutinizing it the better understanding people in this forum will have about this platform, the better information to make decision for the people who want to lend their money using this platform.

Anyway is it not true that this is the spirit of a discussion forum ...

Malthusian

JohnRo wrote: »

I've decided to hold on to a relatively small, capped investment with SS. Sticking to a strategy of blanket coverage, incremental reductions as the completion approaches, followed by a complete disposal at about two months to go, in the hope of avoiding the window in which a loan is more likely to default and the inevitable flood of disposals hit the secondary market.

Greater fool theory, in other words.

JohnRo

Malthusian wrote: »

Greater fool theory, in other words.

I'm not sure the analogy works that well.

My decision to sell off early is not based on any perceived value, it is on the basis that every single loan has the potential to default and I don't know ahead of time, any more than you do, which ones will, if any.

The reasoning behind selling out early is to try and insure the income stream remains uninterrupted should any problems with individual loan/interest repayments surface and in doing so avoid the secondary market flood when they do.

Where there is a delay/default then it is far more likely to present towards the completion date.

masonic

For anyone currently investing in SavingStream, or anyone considering doing so, I would strongly suggest reading the recent discussions in the P2P Independent Forum (here).

Developments over the last couple of months have pushed me to the difficult decision to liquidate my holdings and abandon this platform.

taylornj

masonic wrote: »

For anyone currently investing in SavingStream, or anyone considering doing so, I would strongly suggest reading the recent discussions in the P2P Independent Forum (here).

Developments over the last couple of months have pushed me to the difficult decision to liquidate my holdings and abandon this platform.

I have been following SS on P2P Independent Forum.

Can understand liquidating.

The question is where to go next?

masonic

taylornj wrote: »

The question is where to go next?

I have mostly been topping up my holdings at MoneyThing. Right now there is a fair bit available as people are selling on the secondary market to fund a new loan. There are also a couple of loans on the primary market at Ablrate. I'll be sticking the remainder (which will not be a large sum) in a newer platform, Collateral, that I've been using for a while and have been fairly impressed with.

Flobberchops

Oh. I was considering SS as my third "main" platform when I hit a certain cap with MT and ABL. I haven't done much research on the Independent Forum yet, but in a nutshell, what is making SS look so grim suddenly?